Internal protocol shows: Bishops used sexism against unwelcome female journalist

Article summarized in simple language:

^{Article in even simpler language: The Catholic Church does Catholic Church things.}

Who does the Catholic Church support?

That’s a difficult question. There are actually two questions: Who should the Catholic Church serve? And who does it actually serve?

In Switzerland the Catholic Church mainly serves the clergy (priests and bishops). Even after the bishops’ promises after the publication of the 2023 abuse study, the following still applies: keep quiet, cover up, lie in order not to lose power.

An example shows how bishops dealt with a critical journalist.

In 2014 the Catholic Media Center was founded and the news platform kath.ch was launched. The aim was to conduct critical and independent journalism on religious, social and political issues. Money and support came from the Swiss Bishops’ Conference (SBK) and the Roman Catholic Central Conference (RKZ).

The agreement was that kath.ch would be free in its reporting. However, the bishops had a right of veto on important personnel decisions, the so-called "Nothing stands in the way"a kind of declaration of no objection.

2020 everything changed when journalist Raphael Rauch became editor-in-chief. Rauch made the rather boring news portal more exciting and confrontational. An article about the abrupt departure of a priest and his homophobic tweets aroused anger at the SBK and RKZ, as he wanted to continue working in the church.

2022 tensions between kath.ch and its clients reached their peak, and Rauch finally left the portal at the end of March 2023.

Annalena Müller was hired by Rauch and continued his critical work. In 2023, the University of Zurich presented a study on abuses in the Catholic Church. Müller sharply criticized the church and publicly asked about the responsibility of the bishops.

In 2024 Müller applied for the post of editor-in-chief. Despite her high qualifications, the bishops rejected her "Nothing stands in the way". Instead, the Reformed journalist Christian Maurer was hired.

Why did the bishops reject Müller? According to internal sources and protocols, there were sexist prejudices and the bishops preferred a Reformed man to a well-qualified but critical woman.

Consequences: Müller resigned and the Zug cantonal councilors demanded that the canton stop payments to the bishop and the canons. The handling of abuse cases and the veto against Müller were cited as reasons.

Because of this concordat, all taxpayers in the canton of Zug – and also in other cantons that belong to the diocese of Basel (BE, LU, SO) – pay for the salaries and expenses of the bishop and canons. It doesn’t matter whether they are members of the Catholic Church or not. The motion wants the canton to suspend this payment obligation.

kath.ch did not report on the Müller case, which led to criticism. After the veto, several board members of kath.ch resigned and a new election was held in which no person with a journalistic background was elected, but many church representatives.